Honour your people

And that is exactly what BI means to the organisation - a culture shock.

"Never underestimate the negativity or positivity of people if you don`t get them on board correctly," warns Caron Mooney, director of IS Partners.

Martin Rennhackkamp, strategic information director at the PBT Group, believes that with any BI solution, the premise of "data ownership" is a given and some staff members are reluctant to share what they see as their information. He suggests getting the message across that people within an organisation are not owners of the information, but rather custodians of the information. "This is an issue especially in a more federated organisation," he explains.

Andrew Connold, MD Synergy Computing, agrees, explaining: "When using data warehousing as a part of BI, data does become more public. Without a data warehouse and BI solution, some staff inadvertently hold information that others can benefit from." This can be detrimental to the success of the company because if information is not available to everyone who needs it, we land up with various versions of the truth, he says.

"BI lends itself to information sharing as data is pooled, and staff need to realise that their info is more secure as it is frequently backed up and cleaned," he explains.

To avoid information hoggers, or "data priests", Mooney suggests that proper plans be put in place to train employees on BI processes.

"Very often staff training is not seen as important," she says. "New measures are going to be introduced and this will unsettle people, often leading to staff turnover. Visible commitment is needed from top management and the focus should not just be on the cost of implementation, but training as well."

Paul van Aswegen, Informatica GM, believes that BI puts a huge reliance on the trustworthiness of data. He says: "In many cases, this information has been extracted from internal operational sources, filtered through business intelligence (BI) systems, which can include data warehouses, analysis tools and reporting services, before being presented to the decision-maker."

He says that these BI systems are responsible for churning out data and analyses thereof to help management identify trends and patterns in the market that can be used to make forecasts and decisions affecting the performance of the company. The trustworthiness of the information provided is obviously a critical factor in the reliability of these decisions and forecasts.

Sometimes, however, the mere sharing of information is not the only thing that gets employees` backs up. "When you put in systems like this, certain things are exposed," says Mooney.

This can cause instant negativity. For example, one might find the manager is not managing properly, so what was "hidden" before is suddenly exposed. "This causes mixed reactions. While some are scared, others are relieved," says Mooney.

"The solution here is getting the guys on board early, helping them and understanding what can go wrong," she emphasises.

According to John Olsson, marketing director of Ability Solutions: "We need a substantial increase in the amount of training offered in BI techniques - such as in the intricacies of designing a data cube - and the vendors need to play a much larger role in this education process. I would like to see IT degrees and diplomas including courses on empirical design techniques, for example."

Mooney echoes his concerns, as she clearly sees a demand versus supply issue in the industry. "There is a huge demand for BI-related skills and the industry is experiencing a shortage. Often we find things like implementation and maintenance take longer because of the loss of resources," she concludes.